About
Professor Benjamin Hufbauer’s book, Presidential Temples: How Memorials and Libraries Shape Public Memory (University Press of Kansas), according to Kirk Savage, “shows how presidential libraries expose the basic tensions of American democracy: as archival shrines they serve to embody the ideal of free and open inquiry, while celebrating the concentration of power in the ‘imperial presidency.’” Prof. Hufbauer has been interviewed about presidential libraries and quoted by CNN, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, the British Radio program Monocle, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, The Dallas Business Journal, Bloomberg, and others. He has also written op-eds on presidential libraries for The Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, Inside Higher Ed, and The New York Times.
Hufbauer’s work has been published in Res: The Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics, The Journal of American History, African Arts, American Studies, Competitions, and The Public Historian. Professor Hufbauer has presented his work at conferences for the Midwest Popular Culture Association, the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture, the Semiotic Society of America, the National Council on Public History, the Front Range Symposium on art and History, the Society of Architectural Historians, and the Savannah Symposium. He has also spoken at the Visual Studies Forum at the University of Kentucky, as well as the Crichton Club, in Columbus, Ohio.
Research
Presidential Libraries
Monuments, Memory, and Commemoration
Public History
Film
Course Offerings
ARTH 250 Survey of Ancient to Medieval Art
ARTH 270 Survey of Renaissance to Modern Art
ARTH 394 Twentieth Century Architecture
ARTH 395 American Art I (Art and Architecture from the 17th-19th centuries)
ARTH 396 American Art II (Art and Architecture since 1900)
Special Topics Courses:
ARTH 595-695 Issues in American Art
ARTH 595-695 New Approaches to American Art
ARTH 595-695 Monuments and Memorials
ARTH 595-695 Architecture and Film
ARTH 595-695 Alfred Hitchcock
ARTH 595-695 Animated Film
ARTH 595-596 Fantasy Film
ARTH 595-596 Star Trek
ARTH 595-596 Star Wars (Spring 2016)
Teaching Areas
American Art
19th and 20th Century Architecture
Film
Commemoration and Memory
Presentations
“Black as Cole: Race, Music, and the Early Record Covers for Nat ‘King’ Cole,” Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900, February 22, 2014.
“Hitchcock’s Vertigo: The Architecture of Gender,” Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900, February 24, 2012
“Avatar’s Shock and Awe: Space, Technology, and Race,” Semiotic Society of America, Louisville, October 21, 2010.